Professor Abraham Van Helsing

Time had dragged on. Around him, the world had turned, had changed. In some ways for the better, in others for the worse. Unimaginable wars had riven the world, creating destructive power that had taken him years to full comprehend. Ways of living had come, and gone. Music, art, literature and science had all moved around him.

In many ways, he felt like he had stood still upon a rock in a stream. Or, perhaps, that he was that rock. An observer, still there but worn smooth by the passage of time.

The last time he had done anything of consequence, to his mind, had been 1972 - the last time he had foiled Dracula. It had been a century since he felt that, finally, his time had come at last. It had been 1872, when he had called himself Lawrence Van Helsing, that he had staked Dracula with a carriage wheel, and finally felt to die himself. But then, time had continued its inexorable march. By 1972 it was Lorrimer Van Helsing, alongside one granddaughter, Jessica. By now, she was an old woman, well out of the fight. Her brush with Dracula had, blessedly, pushed her from the fight forever.

But then...there was her. Adelia. She had never known him; her grandmother had died all too soon, the ultimate secret of the Van Helsing line never passed on. The last woman, he knew, he would ever love - and from the pictures, he saw just so much of her in young Adelia's eyes. A name passed down through three generations, now. In some ways, he preferred the anonymity. He had watched so many family members grow old, sicken, and die. That, and the alienation, drove him into research.

He occupied a home the family had secretly owned in London since 1900, thick curtains left over the windows, rooms stuffed with books and curios and secrets. Sometimes, he even remembered to dust. He worked, constantly, studying the news and reading every book he could find, re-reading the oldest ones he had forgotten. An arsenal of knowledge against the resurgence of Dracula - while others in the extended family carried on the fight directly. They dealt with minions and scions - he prepared for the inevitable resurgence of something far worse.

That being said, he kept his eye on her. She was his blood, his granddaughter. He could never abandon her, even if she did not know he existed. For years now, whenever it had appeared she was in financial difficulty - disturbingly common for people of her age, now - an envelope had appeared at her doorstep, filled with cash. An elegant hand left only her name and address, and it was picked up from his home and delivered by a courier.

He'd have to visit a bank one day - most of the cash itself dated to the 1950s, the last time had made a major withdrawal for the coffers down in the vault. To his supreme annoyance, the courier had returned this last time - the envelope smudged by rain. People were a rare thing for him to deal with, and he preferred to never be seen, just in case.

He remained a secret weapon, an arsenal waiting for the time to be right. And one that pretended, very hard, to not be more than a little bit fearful of a world he no longer understood.